Michael Lewis departure another bad sign

No matter how immature, petulant, selfish or egotistical, NFL players don’t simply give up on their team without some serious thought. Not about the team in all instances, but about their own future. Even if they’re in the worst situation a player can face — a senile coaching staff who can’t communicate the plays correctly, terrible food in the team cafeteria, even ugly uniforms — quitting on one’s team paints a scarlet letter so darkly on your chest that no amount of turpentine or sincere explanations can wipe it clean. And any agent worth his salt (or 10%, anyway) will do whatever they can to persuade his client to stay quiet and make the best of things.

The fact that multiple 49ers have decided their careers would be better off if they threw a tantrum and quit entirely speaks to how badly it’s gotten under Mike Singletary. Glen Coffee didn’t want to play football anymore for anyone, so let’s forget his retirement while we’re talking about this. But Kentwan Balmer said he’d rather hang out in his house and look like another spoiled athlete than set foot on another practice field with Singletary and his staff. And today, safety Michael Lewis did the same thing when he asked for his release.

This isn’t something you can write off as just a player upset that he’s about to lose his starting job to Reggie Smith and/or Taylor Mays. In the NFL you don’t get paid if you aren’t under contract. If Lewis was upset by the move but felt like his team was a squad worth sticking with, he’d bust his ass in practice and do all he could to keep his job. And if he lost his job, he’d do whatever he could to contribute to the 49ers making the playoffs.

But as much as Singletary speaks about things like conviction, he shows none himself. I asked Ray Ratto in a chat today about the 49ers’ biggest problem, and he wrote that they could get started on their way to semi-relevance by, “Knowing what they believe in for more than a few weeks at a time.”

When you walk around like a holy figure, spouting off absolutes while attempting to motivate people through volume and personality-size like Singletary, people pay attention to what you say. They take notes. If you act like you’re better than everyone else, people are more attuned to when you do things flawed humans do. Like say one thing and then the next day do something completely different. Sound familiar?

Lewis isn’t that great a safety, relatively speaking. If he’s starting every game of a season for your team, it’s pretty tough to call your defense dominant. But you’ve watched the NFL for a long time. You’ve read the daily transactions, adjusted your fantasy teams when coaches decide to start certain players over others. You’ve watched “Hard Knocks.” When coaches make decisions, even ones players disagree with completely, the result is usually hard work and the assumption that behind the scenes the player is unhappy. Rarely will a player stand firm and publicly state, “There has got to be a better situation than the one I’m facing here, and I’m willing to gamble that I’ll find that situation, reputation be damned.”

We knew Singletary wouldn’t coach the Niners for a decade, because these days his brand of rhetoric and bombast wears thin over time when you’re working with professional athletes. But there’s already been several instances that lead one to think he’s lost the team, and he isn’t even a quarter into his second full season. This isn’t about weeding out players he can’t win with, like he sort of stated during the Vernon Davis press conference after Singletary’s first game in charge. If Lewis was a malcontent, he wouldn’t have been kept around after training camp. He wasn’t good enough. Somewhere along the line, something happened that made Lewis snap, and it’s becoming a pattern on the 49ers, who are sinking into the abyss to the extent where the Raiders are clearly the better team in the Bay Area right now.

So far this season, Singletary and his staff have lacked several things, including:

1. A modern, intelligent plan to win games beyond, “We know what we’re doing, shut up and let us do it.”

2. The conviction to stick to ANY plan for more than three weeks (as Ratto pointed out)

3. The desire to connect with the media (and by extension, fans) in any worthwhile way

4. Proof of even average strategic planning (both in terms of playcalling and scouting of opposing teams) before games, and that goes for every unit on the team

5. The ability to utilize the talent on hand, even though this team, on paper at least, is far more talented than any of the Mike Nolan 7-9 squads

Singletary’s style, which consists of butting one’s head into a brick wall and hoping it breaks, doesn’t work today. Every team has talented players and coaches who put in a lot of time, games are won and lost by adjustments made at halftime and the ability to handle 53 players and make each one feel like they’re contributing to a common goal. Singletary has failed at all those things this season. And as a result, this season looks more like a failure every week.

As for Lewis, I guess it’s time to wish him well in the Pacific Northwest. Just add another guy to the list who can pass along the Niners’ defensive schemes to Pete Carroll. That’s pretty much how this story always seems to end, isn’t it?

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BASG (Steve Berman) and his wife started Bay Area Sports Guy in 2008, and now it's the No. 1 independent website covering Bay Area sports. You can follow him @BASportsGuy and on Facebook.

[...] Finally got a chance to do a little transcribing from the Tweedia Day interviews I pulled, after I had to catch up on work stuff (since I missed work Monday to go to the event), and BASG got overrun by Giants pennant race fever and 49ers silliness. [...]

I'm not entirely sure I agree with this. It's hard to come off as anything other than a fan who is trying to fool himself, but this Michael Lewis situation says to me only that he can't deal with the fact that he's not good enough anymore. The pay cut took a lot out of him. The frustration from his concussions and his inability to hit as hard as he used to. The frustration of being beaten play-after-play and the fact that he'd been referred to as slow. He's just not that good anymore, and he's taking advantage of the fact that the 49ers appear to be a mess right now to get out of here with his head held high. Heck, he might just convince a team that it's the 49ers fault this happened, and he might be able to get paid by somebody else.
It's not so much that he's that insulted, it's that what he's doing is a very smart move for his career moving forward.
For Balmer ... I don't even want to get into that. It's bothersome, but the guy had more kick returns than tackles. I'd be pretty upset, too.

If Lewis truly can't play anymore, then why would he sacrifice his paycheck(s)? Why wouldn't he just take the demotion and collect his money? The other teams have scouts. If Lewis felt like he could get a job somewhere else, he either can still play or his agent thinks very little of the scouting abilities of the other 31 teams. I don't think he bailed to save face, but to get away from a coaching staff that says one thing and does another time and again.
Same with Balmer. Yes, Balmer sucked. But usually it's the teams that make these decisions to go in another direction, not the players.
New offensive coordinator, a QB openly questioning how plays are getting called, three players simply leaving and refusing to come back, and most importantly a team that has regressed in every area on the field.
This whole "my way or the highway" thing is cool and fun when the team is good and overflowing with talent. To me, this season has made Singletary look rigid and in over his head. And after all, they're 0-3. I want winners!

The point of him not being able to play anymore and this whole situation is that he doesn't want to believe it. He's trying to get his way onto another team by making the 49ers look more dysfunctional than they admittedly already are.
The 49ers want to get a second round draft pick on the field a little more and everyone is surprised and thinking the team is untrustworthy? Nobody is guaranteed a starting job.
But I'm not defending this team and it's structure to a large degree, only this particular situation. Sam Lam of Examiner.com used the term "unraveling," but I'm not sure this event furthers that at all. We can look at the OC, the QB, the fact that Sing is no longer a pleasure to listen to, etc - but I don't think we can look at this as anything more than a struggling player getting less playing time and a promising player getting more. This, if anything, is about stability.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see Reggie Smith or even Taylor Mays back there than Michael Lewis any time. I thought he was mediocre when they signed him. But the 49ers are doing everything backwards these days, and that can't be considered a good thing. Lewis leaving might not have a bad effect on the field, but the cumulative effect of all the off-the-field stuff this season can't be good.

I'll probably use the term "suicide," a few times. In a letter.
And Fooch would be so, so upset if I quit. I'm the only one who can reach the snacks in the staff room.
#foochisshortjokesoutsideofninersnation
#whoopsimnotontwitteratall

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[…] Finally got a chance to do a little transcribing from the Tweedia Day interviews I pulled, after I had to catch up on work stuff (since I missed work Monday to go to the event), and BASG got overrun by Giants pennant race fever and 49ers silliness. […]

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